COUNTRY SPORTS AND LONDON MEN. 201 



This much observation has taught me : Take a 

 hundred horses kept in the private stables of the 

 generality of persons, and a hundred kept in the 

 best livery stables — more rough coats, impo- 

 verished looks, colds, coughs, cracked heels, and 

 other sickness from bad management, will be 

 found, by three to one, in the former than in the 

 latter. 



I should say just the same thing by a man 

 keeping a hunter if he lives in London. Many 

 persons do this and send their horse down the 

 night before to meet any of the hounds within 

 twenty miles of town. This is done by some 

 from a very mistaken motive of kindness to the 

 horse; and from the same mistaken notion that 

 they are consulting their own interest by having 

 the horse when in town under their own eye, and 

 under the care of their own servant. We will 

 look a little at this. In the first place, under such 

 circumstances, so far as his stable treatment goes, 

 for three days out of the four, that is, the day he 

 goes out of town, the hunting day, and the day of 

 returning — if sent such a distance — he is scarcely 

 under their eye at all, or at all events only under 

 that of the servants. Then comes the query, " Is 

 their eye of any great advantage to him when it 

 is over him?" and the care of their own servant 

 is not always a guarantee that the care is of the 

 very best sort. In fact with the ordinary run of 



